Dougal Moments
by Baeraad
Summary: A bunch of short stories involving the Awakened in the fictional city of Dougal...
1. New girl in town

_DISCLAIMER: _Mage: the Ascension _and the World of Darkness is the property of White Wolf Publishing. All characters in this story are, however, mine._

_What follows here are a number (three, to start with; more are almost certainly forthcoming) of stories dealing with the Awakened citizens in my fictional city of __Dougal__. They're all kind of short, so it didn't really feel justified to post them all separately. Enjoy. =]_

_As for this particular story… I needed a character for my upcoming M:tA roleplaying thread, and this is the one I came up with. What can I say, the Taftâni are just _too_ cool for words. :D_

The carpet sped past the skyscraper in the Dougal business district, giving the office workers quick enough to catch a glance a most unusual view. About ten seconds after the unorthodox vehicle, a big, black chopper followed, rotor blades roaring.

  The woman on the carpet went by the unlikely name of Denise ibn Rashid. She was dressed in baggy trousers, an embroidered vest and a turban fastened with a gleaming metal buckle. A blonde braid fluttered out behind her as she made the carpet turn ninety degrees at the end of the building and speed down the crossing street.

  "_Yee-haw_!" Denise shouted cheerfully into the wind as the windows whizzed past. She had gotten the chopper on her tail a few minutes after entering Dougal's airspace, but she was confident of her ability to get rid of it. It was faster, yes, but as long as she stayed below the height of the rooftops, that wouldn't do it much good. There was something to be said for manoeuvrability.

  As she was making another turn, she licked one finger and held it up in the air. Hmm… taking into consideration the natural effects of moving at very high speed, the current wind should be in… _that_ direction…

  As the chopper appeared behind her again, Denise took a big bottle made out of smoke-coloured glass out of her modest pack. Holding it out as far away from her body as possible, she uncorked it.

  Nothing happened.

  Well, this was really very embarrassing. Denise resisted the urge to peek down the bottleneck, since that would be about as clever as doing the same with the barrel of a gun. Instead, she probingly patted the back of the bottle.

  The storm wind that came blowing out knocked hats off everywhere at several blocks' distance. It also gave a few more or less innocent pidgins a nasty surprise, and, more importantly, forced the pilot of the black chopper to exercise all his considerable skill to avoid being knocked into one glass-and-steel wall or another.

  "Must have gotten a little stale," Denise mumbled and made a mental note to check up on all the other bottles on her arsenal once she had landed.

  She noticed that the chopper had escaped the wind by lifting up over the rooftops. Denise nodded and smiled. That was good. About time that silly boy realised that he was not going to catch her and gave up.

  Then the windows on the building across the street started breaking, one after the other in a neat row. Denise could faintly here the hoarse _chuddachuddachudda _of machine gun fire from above.

  "Hey, you can't shoot at me in a crowded area!" Denise protested. "Aren't you guys supposed to be all about protecting the public and stuff?"

  Rather than wait for the agents of the Technocracy to remember that that was what they were all about, she kicked the carpet into even higher speed and went down lower. She should be more difficult to keep track of when she was outlined against a lot of moving people and cars. As she rushed past right over their heads, people who had been staring and pointing turned to screaming and running.

  "How're you all doing?" Denise shouted down at them as she went by. "Fine day for it, isn't it?"

  The guy in the chopper seemed to have come back to his senses, because no one fell down dead struck by gunfire, but he was still following her overhead. That was no good; eventually she'd run out of strength, luck, escape-routs or bottles. She chewed thoughtfully on her lip as she flew over the street. Then she saw something that made her light up; a stair down to a subway station.

  "_Yee-haw_!" she hollered happily and flew over to and down through it. Men and women with suits and briefcases threw themselves out of the way as she passed by. Denise waved to them. None of them waved back, though. Really, big-city people could be so rude sometimes.

  She decided to not stop and pay for a ticket, partly because she wasn't planning on getting on a train anyway and partly because she was moving so fast that she wasn't sure she _could_ stop without a very long breaking distance. Instead, she made an elegant turn and disappeared into the railway tunnel.

  "That ought to shake him," she chuckled as she flew along, two feet or so above the tracks. "_Yee_…"

  The headlights of a train appeared from out of a turn in the tracks ahead of her.

  "… haw?" Denise said somewhat dumbly.

  Well, this was no good at all. She couldn't stop in time. She _definitely_ couldn't turn back in time. She couldn't fit herself between the train and the ceiling; Denise was a bit on the slim side, but at this speed, there was a very big chance that she would hit the train, the ceiling, or both. She _could_ fly _through_ the train, destroying everything in her path, but that would probably not be very nice for the passengers, and Denise didn't really feel like committing mass murder on her first day in town.

  That left one chance, and about twenty seconds in which to take it. Wasting none of her precious time, Denise started reading a poem in Arabic. It wasn't really a very good performance, seeing as she spoke three times as fast as was aesthetically pleasing, but Denise gathered all her carefully hoarded strength and _made_ it work.

  Everything went black for a moment, and the rumble of the train quieted to a mumble… and then to nothing. When Denise's eyes adapted, she was flying through exactly the same tunnel, but now there was no train in it.

  What _was_ in it, though, were… well, _things_ would probably be the best way to describe them, really. They were slimy. They were icky. Some of them had eyes, some of them had legs, and some of them had even what could be described as faces in the traditional sense of the word, but almost no one had more than one of the three.

  "Don't mind me," she shouted. "I'm just passing through. Love what you've done with the place, though."

  A small, green creature that looked a little like a starfish with hands dropped from the ceiling and landed behind her on the carpet. Denise gave off a yelp and quickly reached into her pack for the club that her master had made her bring. The righteous flame of magick was all very well, but in a tight spot, a suitably heavy stick was a girl's best friend.

  "Get _off_!" she complained as she bashed the starfish-thing with the club. "You're getting slime all over my carpet! Do you realise what this thing costs to dry-clean?"

  The starfish-thing showed no sign of knowing what the carpet cost to dry-clean, but eventually it decided that no matter _how_ tasty a morsel Denise looked like, she wasn't worth the hassle. It leaped off the carpet again. Denise sighed with relief, and started reading another poem.

  As she reached the forth stanza, there was that moment of darkness and quiet again, and then the creatures that had lined her way were gone. She was flying through an empty tunnel again. Behind her, she could faintly hear the sound of the train she had had to dive into the Invisible World to avoid.

  A sign appeared out of the gloom. Denise slowed down to read it. _Whitebrook_ _Station_. Ah, a stroke of luck; that just so happened to be where she was going. Smiling tiredly, she sped up the carpet and flew up to the station, over the ticket booth and on to the stairs. There she landed the carpet.

  There were people all around her, most of which seemed to be pretty upset about the fact that a blonde in a turban had just flown a carpet out of a railway tunnel. Denise ignored them as she got to her feet. She groaned at the pain of her aching muscles; the result of practicing blatant magick in front of hundreds of unbelievers, no doubt. Just a scrape compared to what she had had to put up with sometimes, but still… Paradox wasn't this bad home in Nevada. There weren't enough people around to _make_ it this bad.

  She grinned to herself as she rolled up the carpet, took it under one arm and lifted her pack in the other hand. Well, that just meant that she would have to work all the harder to turn the unbelievers into believers, didn't it?

  She walked up to the top of the stairs, then stopped and turned around.

  "Yes, good people," she said cheerfully to the gaping crowd below her. "You did, in fact, see what you're right now wondering if you saw. Magick is real. Tell your friends, if you have friends. If you don't have friends, make a website or something, every little bit helps. Thank you in advance."

  Then she walked away, whistling to herself.

  It took her half an hour to locate the Black Moon Bar. She strolled into the shady interior and looked at the crowd that were sitting at their tables. Most of them dressed strangely, wore a lot of quasi-religious symbols, or both. In fact, she didn't feel all too much out of place here, which was saying some.

  She walked up to the bar and sat down on a stool with a happy sigh.

  "So," she said to the barkeep, a young Goth man who viewed her with amiable calm. "I heard through the grapevine that you fellows were looking for some extra muscle?"

  Behind her, she could just faintly make out some guy talking to his wife.

  "Come on," he mumbled. "We're leaving. In fact, we're going on a vacation."

  "A what?" the wife said. "What? Why?"

  "Because that's a freaking Weaver, that's why," the man grumbled. "Don't worry, we can come back in a month or so. If Dougal is still standing by then."

  Denise grinned widely. It was always nice to know that your Tradition had made a name for itself.


	2. Mentor wanted

_DISCLAIMER: _Mage: the Ascension _and the World of Darkness is the property of White Wolf Publishing. All characters in this story are, however, mine._

_This story is more than usually ingrained with the Dougal metaplot. I didn't really mean to _have_ a metaplot, but everything I write tend to want to connect to everything else I write, and sometimes that gives you stories like this, which doesn't work as stand-alones at all. To find out who Dennis is, read _This business of saving the world_, and to learn the whereabouts of Karl Militts, read _Reign of Conformity_. If you don't feel like reading either one (why not, for heaven's sakes? I'll have you know they're _excellent _stories! =]), you should probably skip this one, too… ^_^;;_

Dennis had been keeping careful watch of the entrance to the café since he had gotten there, but he still hadn't noticed the lanky young man until he sat down next to him. Dennis flinched, startled, and then controlled himself. He was supposed to impress this guy with his great potential; acting jumpy wouldn't do.

  The guy didn't look very scary, either, at least not to Dennis. He was tall and thin, with long, black hair in severe need of some washing and combing and at least a week's dark stubble on his chin. He was grinning in the somewhat vague fashion of a man whose mind is filled with so much exciting stuff that he can bear to pay only the slightest attention to the real world.

  "Ah," Dennis said, somewhat reserved. "You would be Michael Deerheart, then?"

  The man chuckled. He sounded a little like Goofy – _ahulk, ahulk_.

  "You betcha," he said. "And you're the dude who Mom wants me to recruit, right? Dennis something?"

  "Lantz. And yes." Dennis noted the choice of words. So Samara Deerheart, head honcho – or would that be honcha, maybe? – of the most established cabal in Dougal _wanted_ to recruit him. That left him in the comfortable position of deciding whether he wanted to be mentored by her. Her power was certainly beyond question…

  "Okay, cool." Michael grinned amiably. "Well, so, like, what do you wanna learn?"

  Dennis raised an eyebrow.

  "Magic?" he suggested.

  Michael laughed.

  "Well, yeah, man, but what kind? Like, are you into herbs and stuff, or do you want to summon demons, or…"

  "Oh, that." Dennis scratched his thick mop of black hair. "I don't know. I just found out last week that I've been using magic for years without even knowing about it. That weird guy, Kevin Harsh, he said I was an Orphan."

  "Oh yeah, you can do stuff already, right?" Michael looked pleased. "So how've you been doing it so far?"

  "I glare," Dennis said.

  "Er?" Michael said.

  "I glare." Dennis sighed. "Then the person I glare at get scared, even if he's bigger and stronger than I am. Pity it doesn't work on my boss, or I'd have gotten a raise by now… but that's really _all_ I can do. I've never really been all that interested in magic. Or, well, I've always read everything I could find about the Loch Ness monster and alien abductions and stuff like that, so I guess I'm _interested_ in weird stuff. I just never thought I'd be able to _do_ weird stuff."

  "Gotcha." Michael nodded. "Well, okay." He rubbed his shaggy chin. "So what do you like to do? What are you good at?"

  "Computers," Dennis said immediately. "I'm a programmer."

  "For real?" Michael _ahulk_ed some more and slapped his tight. "Hey, man, this is, like, your lucky day! I can teach some _really_ cool shit you can do with computers! It's, like, my thing."

  "Really?" Dennis squinted. "I thought the Deerheart Coven were nature-mages or something."

  "Well, what does a computer run on?" Michael said. "Silicone and electricity, right? That's just stone and lightning. Can't get more natural than stone and lightning, huh?"

  Dennis had to laugh. This guy actually had a sort of weird charm, once you got used to him.

  "I guess you can see it like that," he admitted. "So let's say I take you as my mentor and join up with the Deerheart family. What would that mean for me?"

  "Well," Michael said, "for starters, you'd be under the protection of, like, _the_ biggest and baddest mage group in town. I mean, sure, there's the Technocracy and shit, but as far as Tradition-guys go, we're _it_, man."

  "Is that so?" Dennis squinted, smiling teasingly. "I heard of a group called the Azure Angels…"

  "Oh, them." Michael laughed and made a dismissive gesture. "Nah, they're has-beens. They're leader's gone poof – they don't know where he is, we don't know where he is, no one knows where he is. And the chick who used to be their, like, spokesperson, well, we still see _her_ every now and again, but she's not working with them no more. There's some bad blood there, I think. Don't know what it's all about, though. No, you stick with us, man. We've got the know-how, we've got the numbers, we've got the connections. We'll turn you into a kick-ass mage in no time."

  "Mmm." Dennis nodded and took a sip of his coffee. "Well, I've already talked to those freaky kids who run that bar over in Whitebrook. They gave me a pretty stuck-up speech about how they can't _teach_ me anything, because magic is like art and no one can teach you to be an artist if you don't already have it in you. They didn't exactly come out and say that I _didn't_ have it in me, but it was close." He shrugged. "They're right, too. I couldn't even learn how to play the guitar when I was in school."

  "The Black Moon Brotherhood." Michael nodded. "Hollow Ones. They're hardly more than Orphans themselves, you know? Every one of them doing their own thing." He grinned and made an acknowledging bow of his head. "Not that that's not kind of cool in itself, but…"

  "But it's not for me." Dennis looked thoughtful. "Those two religious guys are in the hospital at the moment, and I and the good Lord never got on that well, anyway. The Asian lady is in _Hell_, from what I gather. Her friends say that she'll find her way out eventually, but I don't feel like waiting. And that Kevin Harsh character says that he's not _allowed_ to teach me anything. What he _can_ do is sponsor me into that Order of his, and _they'll_ select a teacher for me. I might have to move halfway across the country. That's no good. My life's here in Dougal."

  "So the Children of Sunset are out, too," Michael said. "Guess that leaves you with us."

  "Could be," Dennis agreed. "But I've got one more call to make, don't I?"

  Michael blinked.

  "The Azure Angels?" he said. "But, hey, I already told you…"

  "_You_ told me," Dennis agreed. "Shouldn't they be allowed to tell me themselves? Hey, if you folk are really as good as you say, you can stand up to some competition."

  Michael looked dumbstruck for a moment. Then he threw his head back and laughed. _Ahulk, ahulk, ahulk_!

  "Yeah, competition, man!" he chuckled. "Survival of the fittest! Big thing with us Verbena guys! You've, like, done your homework!"

  "What can I say?" Dennis grinned knowingly, though he had done no such thing. "Knowledge is power."

"_The number you have dialled does not exist_," a neutral female voice said at the other end of the line.

  Dennis glared at the receiver. This was the third time he had dialled it; there was no way he could have done it wrong. Had Kevin just made a mistake in writing the number down for him? Possible; it had been an intense night. Annoying, though. He'd have to call Kevin up tonight and ask him for the right one. Or had the Azure Angels fallen on so hard times that they couldn't even pay their telephone bill?

  "You! Lantz! That had better not be a personal call you're making!"

  Jorgen, Dennis' boss, looked into the cubicle where Dennis was sitting. He was a very large man, six foot seven at the very least, and bulky to boot. Dennis sometimes felt like he was the slave of an evil giant.

  "No, sir," he said, forcing the second word out through lips that were by nature and unbridled habit very unwilling to use it. "Just checking my voicemail."

  "Hmpf." Jorgen didn't look the least bit appeased by that. He would probably have liked to have a valid reason to punish Dennis. Dennis had a bit of an attitude problem, and though he did his best to hide it as to avoid getting fired, Jorgen was the kind of boss that could _smell_ it if you didn't shake in your bones at the thought of him being displeased with you. "Well, don't just sit there, then! That project won't finish itself!"

  He stomped off to find someone else to harass.

  _I can do magic,_ Dennis thought. _Why is it that that doesn't help me the least around here? His skull is too damn thick for the glaring thing to work, I guess._

_  Maybe Michael can teach me how to improve my technique so it _does_ work. That'd be nice._

  He went back to his computer screen to keep writing the code which would become one tiny part in some unspeakably dull project which would probably be discontinued from lack of funding within the year. Dennis sighed. He _loved_ writing programs, but sometimes he felt like this job was custom-made to suck the life out of him. Maybe lifeless programmers were more willing to put in extra hours or something.

  The computer screen didn't show his editor window, though. Instead, all it showed was a detailed picture of a dark-haired woman with big swan's wings on her shoulders against a blue sky. It was pretty, like an old-fashioned painting, but it had an edge to it, too. One got the feeling that this angel was more of the avenging kind than the guardian kind.

  Well. Dennis wasn't thick. He had a pretty clear idea about who had done this. The question was _why_.

  A text window opened just above the angel's head.

  **Hello, Dennis.**

  Dennis hesitated. What was he supposed to do? Talk? Type? These guys had hijacked his computer good and proper; he couldn't even call up a Start menu. As viruses went, this one was along the lines of anthrax.

  He frowned. He didn't take well to being bullied, and this boisterous way of making contact frankly pissed him off. What if Jorgen came back and saw this? These morons could get him fired!

  He finally settled for typing.

  **Fuck off, **he wrote. It seemed to reach its destination, because the next line in the window was:

  **There is no need for that attitude.**

  **There's every need for that attitude,** Dennis wrote. **Look, I DO want to speak with you. But not right NOW. I'm at work.**

  **That is of no consequence,** the Azure Angel said.

  **Maybe not for you, but it is for me.**

  **It is of no consequence for you either,** the Azure Angel insisted. **We guarantee it.**

  Dennis relaxed a little. Okay, fine. Maybe these guys knew what they were talking about. They had hacked into the company's supposedly firewall-protected server easily enough, after all.

  **Okay, then,** he wrote. **I'm looking for someone to teach me magic.**

**  We can teach you,** the Azure Angel answered without a moment's hesitation.

  **That's great, **Dennis wrote. **So can the Deerhearts, I understand.**

**  The Deerhearts are a remnant from prehistoric times,** the Azure Angel wrote. **What can they possibly teach you that is worth knowing?**

  Dennis smirked. It seemed that this one was quite keen on having him on his side, too. It was nice to be wanted. Still, he kind of preferred Michael Deerheart to this guy. At least he had a sense of humour, even if it was weird. The Azure Angel seemed about as stuffy as they came.

  **As I hear it,** he typed, **they're the big boys in town right now. As for you, I think the word "has-beens" was used.**

Again the reply was instantaneous, like the Azure Angel had anticipated every possible route the conversation could take and prepared for them.

  **The Deerhearts are fools. It is true that we are suffering certain difficulties right now. They will be dealt with. After that, we will once more be the dominant cabal in Dougal. That day you will wish to stand with us, and it is not far away.**

  Dennis had to smile. The fellow was certainly sure of himself.

  **I don't know,** he wrote. **Talk is cheap, isn't it? I'm going to need something more than just your word that you WILL become worth allying with at some undetermined point in the future.**

**  There is something else you need to consider,** the Azure Angel said.

  Dennis wrinkled his brow. Now what? He put his fingers to the keyboard to type a response, but the Azure Angel had already continued.

  **Samara Deerheart is currently at the top of the ladder. She has no need for further allies; she just wants them anyway. Why would she reward you for siding with her when she is strong? We, on the other hand, will reward you mightily for siding with us when we are weak. And we are not so weak that there is not much we can already offer you.**

  Dennis hesitated.

  **Keep talking, **he typed.

  **Look behind you,** the Azure Angel answered.

  Dennis looked behind him, and almost had a stroke. Jorgen was standing there, staring at the screen over Dennis' shoulder. There was no telling _how_ long he had been there; Dennis hadn't heard him coming. Oh, he was in for it now, he was going to be out on his ass in two seconds flat…

  "Lantz," Jorgen said in a strange, empty voice. Dennis blinked. Where was the violent rage? He had been expecting violent rage.

  "Yeah?" he said suspiciously.

  "I was just thinking," Jorgen said in the same, hollow voice. "You're one of the best programmers here. You're due a raise. I'll go take care of it immediately."

  Then he walked away. Dennis turned back to the screen, wild-eyed and far from his usual obnoxious self.

  **And within a few hours, **the Azure Angel said, **he will have decided that it was his own idea.** The picture hadn't really changed, but Dennis could have sworn that the angel looked smug now.

  **So,** he typed, trying to get over the shock and surprise. **I guess there ARE things you can offer me.**

**  You have seen but the slightest touch of our power, as yet,** the Azure Angel wrote. **We may not be all we have been, but we are mighty.**

  Dennis believed him. Anyone who could, what, hack into someone's brain or something, was "mighty" indeed.

  _I want to be able to do that,_ he thought. The thought surprised him, but it was true. He _did_ want to learn how to do that. With power like that, there was no end to what he could do. And it had only been "the slightest touch of our power". What could they teach him that was even _better_ than that?

  **So I see,** he wrote. **Okay, let's say I go with you. What happens next?**

**  You will be given files,** the Azure angel wrote, **links, instructions. Enough to teach you how to begin to use your powers in an efficient way. You will also be given a direct address to one of us, so that you can ask our help with anything in the material that is unclear.**

  Dennis considered that. He had been expecting more of a formal tutelage than that, but then again, he _was_ a grown man. He didn't need someone to hold his hand every step of the way. It seemed fair enough.

  **And in return?** he wrote.

  **Our former mouthpiece has betrayed us,** the Azure Angel responded. **None of us are willing to take her place. A Sleeper would not be taken seriously. For now, you act as our representative among the other cabals. There is research that can be done no other way than through talking to people face to face.**

**  What sort of research?** Dennis wrote.

  **Our leader, Whirlwind, has gone missing. **Before Dennis' eyes, the picture on the screen darkened, the blue sky turning a deep crimson. The angel's pure-white wings became black, and her face assumed a grim, warlike expression. **You will assist in finding his whereabouts. If he is alive, he must be brought back to us. If he is dead, he must be avenged.**

  Dennis laughed. Detective work, eh? This might even be fun.


	3. Takin' it easy

_DISCLAIMER: _Mage: the Ascension _and the World of Darkness is the property of White Wolf Publishing. All characters in this story are, however, mine._

_One of my quirks; I always want to hear the other side of the story. For that reason, I can't help but kind of like the Technocracy, who has to try to rule the world and protect the hapless Sleepers from seeing anything that might upset them. This is my first attempt at having a "good" Technocrat in a story. Please do tell me how I succeeded. =]_

Being connected to the Digital Web only by fairly rudimentary technology – rudimentary, that is, by the standards of the Technocratic Union, not by any common view – Albert Pine heard someone enter the room his physical body was in. He also heard that someone mumbling to himself, and realised that he was needed.

  "Be right back," he said to the spikes-and-black-leather-covered icon he was chatting with. "There's a situation back in Hamburger Country."

  Hamburger Country was the real world. No one knew quiet where the phrase had come from, but it was easy enough to guess that it was based on the theme of real world = physical bodies = meat = hamburger. The Web was full of those little in-jokes.

  "No worries, Ironflame," the lady in spikes and leather said amiably. "I'm not going anywhere."

  Albert uttered a short, subvocalised command, and found himself back in his tall, lanky body, hanging in a sort of sling in the safehouse common room. Taking off his goggles, he could see the well-muscled, brutish-looking man who had just stepped in.

  "Howdy, Jake," Albert said cheerfully. "Been out making the world safe for democracy again?"

  Jake muttered something on the general line that democracy could go and perform unlikely physical actions on itself. Albert realised that his first estimation had been right. His help was indeed needed. Jake needed to see the bright side of life.

  "Now, now, don't be like that," he therefore said. "Sit down! Relax! Have a Diet Pepsi!"

  "I don't _want_ to sit down and relax and have a Diet Pepsi!" Jake growled.

  "Suit yourself," said Albert, who personally felt that sitting down and relaxing and having a Diet Pepsi was one of the pleasures in life that was not to be discarded without very good reason. "What _do_ you want, then?"

  Jake slammed his fists into one of the tables. It broke into three pieces; Jake's muscles had been enhanced to almost ridiculous proficiency by state-of-the-art cybernetics. Albert watched, unblinking. He was used to Jake's tantrums by now.

  "_I want to get my hands on that bitch Diana Helsing_!" Jake now bellowed. "_That's what I want! I want to tear her into tiny little pieces and stomp on them until my feet get blisters_!"

  "That doesn't sound very nice at all," Jake said. "Blisters can be real hassles if you're not careful."

  "I was sure I had her this time!" Jake said miserably, his shaved head hanging listlessly between his very broad shoulders. "But when I rushed into her room, all I found… all I found…" He hid his face in his hands.

  "There, there," Albert said comfortingly. "What did you find?"

  "A monitor showing a recording of her," Jake whimpered.

  "Well, then at least you've made a visual confirmation," Albert said encouragingly. "That's nice, isn't it?"

  "It said 'neh neh neh neh neh'," Jake said, clearly on the verge of tears from pure humiliation.

  "Ah, aural confirmation too, then."

  "And then it exploded."

  "Good heavens. Did anyone get hurt?"

  Jake shrugged.

  "Just me. It was a directed blast. I went through some repair Procedures afterwards."

  "Well, that's something," Albert insisted. "Really, Jake, shape up, would you? You have an excellent track record. Just because this woman has gotten the better of you a few times…"

  "Sixty-two," Jake growled. "Sixty-two times, this one included."

  "What, really?"

  "I've got them all on file in my cerebral database," Jake said with the voice of a man who puts great effort into revelling in his misery. "The most recent one is diana_screwed_me62.vdr."

  "Now really, you must stop obsessing about this," Albert said, kindly but firmly. "In that cerebral database, do you also have a record of who holds the current Dougal record for most werewolf pelts brought in?"

  "Er… me…" Jake said reluctantly.

  "That's right, you. And when the Exchanger of Shapes decided to stroll through downtown last year, who was the one who fried his crazy ass? _After_ the rest of us had decided that the smartest thing to do was to cut our losses and pull back?"

  "Me?" Jake said.

  "You and no other, my friend! And who is going to get Diana Helsing the next time you tangle?"

  Jake pulled himself up and slammed a fist into his chest. Most chests would have collapsed if Jake had slammed a fist into them, but Jake's chest was on level with his fists.

  "Me!" he said resolutely.

  "_Yes_!" Albert said. "Now perk up. Sixty-third time's the charm."

  "Yeah," Jake said, a faint smile on his lips. "Okay. I'll go take a shower now. I've got plaster dust all over."

  He stomped off towards the living quarters.

  "Don't forget to check all your skin patches!" Albert shouted after him. "We don't want you to get a short circuit again, do we?"

  _That_ had been an interesting week, to be sure. Albert would rather not spend another week trying to get malfunctioning cyborg hardware back online, thank you.

  Feeling pleased with himself after a work well done, Albert subvocalised another command and went online again. The spikes-and-leather icon turned towards him and smiled as his own icon activated.

  "There you are," she said.

  "Sorry about that," Albert said. "Jake needed someone to cheer him up. You know, PurplePiper, you _could_ go a little easier on the poor guy. He's going to get self-esteem issues."

  "Oh, come on." The icon that was animated by Diana Helsing of the Virtual Adepts grinned shamelessly. "How can I resist it? He looks so _cute_ when he's lying there in the rubble and trying to figure out what's what."

  "I daresay you are right," Albert admitted. "Now, you were saying about that Nephandi cabal…?"


	4. Little miracles

_DISCLAIMER: _Mage: the Ascension _and the World of Darkness is the property of White Wolf Publishing. All characters in this story are, however, mine._

_For the record: yes, the Nephandus in this story is an Euthanathoi. No, she's not a _corrupted_ Euthanathoi. She's a proper Euthanathoi, carrying out a proper Euthanathoi's work. In my version of the World of Darkness, the Euthanathos are a Nephandic cult. The reason for that should be clear from the story._

_Also for the record, I'm 100% for assisted suicide. But the key word is "suicide"._

***

The first night Desmond Flanagan saw the Nephandus, he was lying awake because his wound ached. It wasn't a serious wound; the bullet had missed all major organs and just ploughed its way through fat and muscle. It hadn't gotten infected, either; the doctors had assured him that he would be out of the hospital by the end of the week, though he would have to come back for a few checkups. Even so, sometimes there was a dull pounding in it that made sleep impossible, no matter how tired he was.

  They had put him in a bed that was part of a long row of beds along a corridor. There were sheets of cloth hanging between the different bed spaces, to offer the residents a modicum of privacy, but the one between Desmond and his closest neighbour had been left drawn back. If it hadn't been, nothing of what happened would have come to pass.

  The coincidence surprised him but a little. He had lived his life in a world of little miracles.

  The Nephandus was a woman of indeterminate age, small and pale, with dark hair tied into a bun at her neck. She was wearing a nurse's white clothes, and she brought the pillow down to block Desmond's neighbour's mouth and nose with professional care.

  "My good lady," Desmond said from his bed. "What _are_ you doing?"

  She flinched, and the pillow stopped in its descent. She looked at him with oddly vulnerable eyes.

  "This is just a dream," she said softly. "Go back to sleep, sir."

  He could feel the enchantment closing on him, but he brushed it off. He had sometimes spent as much as a week without sleep in order to learn not to be commanded by his body. If he could stay awake when every fibre of his being screamed for sleep, why should this little spell be a problem for him?

  "It's tempting," he said. "I'm very tired. But I really don't think you should do what you're doing."

  He saw realisation dawn. He was part of her world; he was not someone that she could brush off by virtue of her abilities. She straightened up, looking calmly at him.

  "Why not?" she asked.

  "Well." The brow beneath Desmond's long, white hair wrinkled. "We might begin with _Thou Shalt Not Kill_."

  "But I'm not a Christian, sir."

  He smiled faintly.

  "But you are, I think, a human being. It's a dark thing, to take a human life. I would advice against it."

  She watched him dispassionately.

  "You have never taken a life, sir? Ever?"

  "I have," Desmond admitted. "Not happily and not as anything but a last resort. But I have."

  "And I do not take this life happily," the Nephandus said. "And this is the only answer that remains."

  Desmond pondered that in silence for a moment. The Nephandus waited.

  "If this is the answer," he said, "what is the question?" He looked at the sleeping patient. He was an old and very thin man, completely bald on the head but sporting a thick, grey beard. "What has he done, that he must die?"

  "He has done nothing. But he suffers." The Nephandus stroked the elderly man's forehead with a pale finger. "His sickness has gone beyond any cure. His every breath is pain. It's better for him to die."

  "Everyone suffers," Desmond said. "How do you decide whose suffering is so great that it would be better for him to be dead?"

  A slight shrug.

  "I use my best judgement."

  "There are many things that humans are fit to judge," Desmond said. "And then there are a few where no one but God is fit to judge. This, I think, is one of the second kind. Go away."

  The Nephandus looked at him quietly, and then turned around and walked away.

  Desmond continued his involuntary vigil, now with more than ever to keep him awake.

***

The next day, Desmond spoke to the elderly man in the next bed. They were both having a trey's worth of hospital food for breakfast. The man ate slowly, without appetite, and with hands that would not quite obey him. Desmond did not find the food especially appetising, but thanked the One and Prime for it regardless. The world was filled with things that were poisonous, or at the very least unsuitable, for humans to eat. Once you realised that, you understood that any kind of food was to be considered a gift.

  "My name's Desmond Flanagan," he said conversationally. "What's yours?"

  The old man slowly turned his head to face him. He squinted nearsightedly at Desmond.

  "E-excuse me?" he said. His voice was frail, and strained, and old. "Are you talking to me…?"

  "Yes," Desmond said.

  "My… my name is Martin Glower," the old man said.

  "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Glower," Desmond said. "And how do you feel this fine morning?"

  Martin laughed. It was a thin, hoarse, mirthless sound.

  "Oh, young man. You don't want to know."

  Desmond shrugged.

  "I have gotten answers that I haven't liked often enough," he said. "That hasn't made me stop asking questions."

  "Oh." Martin smiled humourlessly. "In that case, I feel like I'm dying. Is that one of those answers you don't like?"

  "I can't say I particularly care for it, no," Desmond agreed.

  "Well, there you have it all the same." Martin sank back against the pillows with a low groan. "It hurts, you know. Dying does. In my head… my chest… my gut. And every time I think that it can't get any worse, I just have to wait another week and it does."

  "I'm sorry to hear that," Desmond said sincerely. "May I ask you a question, Mr. Glower?"

  Martin smiled weakly.

  "It's just Martin, young man. Just Martin. I don't feel strong enough for niceties. And yes, you may."

  "Thank you. And feel free to call me Desmond," the younger man said. "My question is this: with all the pain you are in, do you wish to die?"

  Martin sighed.

  "You would think I would, wouldn't you?"

  "I will not insult the variety of God's creation by assuming I understand someone I have just met," Desmond said immediately. "But if you said that you did, I would see why. That is true."

  Martin nodded slowly, but didn't speak. He remained silent for so long that Desmond wondered if he had gone to sleep, but then he turned his head slightly, looking at Desmond with tired eyes.

  "No, I don't want to die," he said simply. "I know I will whether I want to or not. And I want the pain to end. But I wish that the pain would end without me having to die." His eyes gleamed, moist. "Isn't it silly? You would think an old man like me would have more sense than to wish for the impossible, wouldn't you?"

  "I see nothing wrong with wishing for the impossible," Desmond said. "God sometimes grants even prayers we haven't voiced. But I don't think that He bothers with those who have lost even the courage to dream." He shrugged. "I may of course be wrong."

  The corners of Martin's mouth twitched.

  "Are you a priest, young man?"

  "When I was a young man, I was a priest," Desmond said, mildly amused. "Now I'm a middle-aged man, and I have given up preaching."

  "I'm sorry." Martin sighed. "My eyes aren't very good. I just heard that your voice was strong." He put a finger on his lip, thoughtful. "I never did believe in any of that stuff. I was a devoted atheist. Huh. I guess that means that either I was right and I'll just fade away, or I was wrong and I'll burn in Hell."

  "Oh, I daresay there are more possibilities than those," Desmond said with a shrug. "And atheism and religion aren't especially important distinctions. It's far more important, as I see it, to admit your place in the world."

  "Place?" Martin said blankly.

  "That you are part of the world," Desmond said, "not just an uninvited guest. If there is a God who made us all, then He meant for us to be here, and He meant for us to influence and interact with the world around us. If there is not, then we are simply jumped-up apes walking around on a ball of stone floating in space, and we are free to make of our lives what we see fit. In _both_ cases, each man and woman has importance, and rights, and responsibilities. The question is whether you admit that to yourself, or hide in the conviction that nothing you do matters, either because God decides everything anyway or because there is no God and nothing _at all_ matters."

  Martin looked startled at the rant. Desmond personally felt somewhat proud of it. Maybe he hadn't quite lost his touch from his old days as a travelling preacher.

  "I… can't say I've ever thought about it," the old man finally said. "But I did my best of my life, if that's what you mean. I married the girl of my dreams, and we had fine children. I spent forty years teaching elementary school. Loved every moment of it. But still…"

  "You want more," Desmond said.

  "Yes." Martin nodded slowly. "Yes. I want more life. So much more…" He sighed. "You don't suppose your God would grant that to an old atheist, do you?"

  "God will do what He will, and He does not tell me what, or why," Desmond said. "But I think it's unlikely."

  They didn't talk more that day.

***

The second night Desmond Flanagan saw the Nephandus, he had been expecting her. This night his wound didn't feel so bad; God had blessed him with a quick healing, and the injury was rapidly closing up beneath the bandage. He could have slept if he had wanted to, this night, but he didn't. He lay awake, waiting for the Nephandus.

  Around midnight, she came. She made no move to choke Martin this time. Instead, she walked up to the spot where she had stood the previous night and looked calmly at Desmond.

  "He says that he doesn't want to die," Desmond said conversationally.

  "He should," the Nephandus said. "This life has nothing left to offer him. He should let go of it."

  "That is as might be," Desmond said. "But it's his life, and he has the right to cling to it if he wishes."

  "Is that how you see it?" the Nephandus said. "Is that how we should all act, we Awakened ones? Just leave everyone to their own devices, because we respect them too much to teach them that there's a better way?"

  "You're not teaching," Desmond pointed out. "You're killing."

  "I am doing him a favour. He does not have the courage to let go of his ailing body. I'm ending his torment for him."

  "You are ending his life along with his torment," Desmond said. "He wants the latter gone, but he's fond of the former."

  The Nephandus shrugged.

  "Death is the most natural thing there is," she said. "This age, this culture, thinks it is a horrible thing, that should be avoided at all cost. People flee from death when they should be preparing for it. No one can live forever, and yet everyone tries, and their lives are less fulfilling because of it. Is this right?"

  "Probably not," Desmond said. "So go out. Give lectures. Talk to people. Try to make them see things your way. If you can convince people to meet death with dignity, by all means do so. But you're not trying to convince this man. You're trying to _kill_ this man. And whatever rhetoric you put behind that, it will still be wrong."

  For the first time, anger gleamed in the Nephandus' dark eyes.

  "And what am I stealing from him," she said, "that is so invaluable that you have to defend it so vigorously? A few more days. A week, at the most. Filled with pain, filled with fear, filled with misery. How is that preferable to a quick, painless death in his sleep?" She paused. "Or perhaps you think your God will rescue him? Perform a miracle and make him whole again? Is that what you think, man who is no longer a priest?"

  "I think it's unlikely," Desmond said again.

  "Then what _do_ you think?"

  "I think that God gave this man his life," Desmond said. "And in a few more days, a week at the most, God will take it back again. Until that happens, his life is his own, and you will not touch it. Go away."

  Once more, the Nephandus turned around and walked away.

***

Desmond was thoughtful the next day. He didn't touch any of the books he had had his friends bring him. Instead, he just lay in his bed, staring intently at the wall and pondering.

  "What are you thinking about?" Martin said with his thin old man's voice. Desmond blinked and turned to look at his neighbour.

  "Life," he said, "and what makes it worth living. And God, and what He expects us to make of this strange place He's put us in."

  "And?" Martin said.

  "And I must admit that I really have no idea. Oh, I have more theories than you can shake a stick at. But all of them seem so small and frail when I hold them up to reality."

  Martin chuckled breathlessly.

  "You haven't really given up preaching," he said. "You're just not preaching to anyone but yourself these days."

  Desmond shrugged.

  "At least I can be sure that I'll have my own full attention."

  "Why do you believe?" Martin asked curiously. "I never could find anything that seemed plausible."

  Desmond considered the question.

  "I suppose I believe because it suits me to believe," he said. "Because it falls natural to me to see the world in that way."

  "Hmm." Martin looked thoughtful. "Pardon an old man who doesn't have the strength for courtesy… but isn't that akin to wishful thinking?"

  Desmond didn't take offence. He had considered that question often enough.

  "Not quite," he said. "Wishful thinking is closing your eyes to reality. What I'm doing is more like… _interpreting_ reality. And really, all interpretations are equally valid, as long as they are internally logical."

  Martin gave him a confused look.

  "Simple example?" Desmond said. "If you drop a stone, it will in all but a very rare few cases fall to the ground. But does it fall because the weight of the Earth has made a deepening in the local space-time, or does it fall because God has decreed that it should? There is no way to tell the difference, so we may as well decide on the latter. However, having decided to believe in that, I can't believe that airplanes fly against the will of God, because if he can pull down a rock, why should it be beyond His power to pull down an airplane? My view of the world must be internally logical, but otherwise, I can believe what I choose – and whenever I fail to accurately predict the workings of the world, I just have to refine my theories to fit the new information."

  "I don't understand," Martin said. "You sound more like a scientist than a priest…"

  Desmond shrugged.

  "When religion is at its best, it is just science with a soul," he said. "And when science is at its worst, it's just religion without one. One paradigm is as good as another until proven to be contradictive or in denial of known evidence."

  It was even more complicated than that, actually, but Desmond didn't feel like explaining Consensual Reality to Martin. He didn't really need to know, anyway. It wasn't the point.

  "I've never looked at it that way before," Martin admitted.

  "Most people don't," Desmond said. "Most people are too fond of the idea that the world can only be described in one way, and that that way provides the whole of the description. But the universe is more complicated than that. God may know how it all fits together, but I'm not sure any one person can." He smiled wryly. "But it's still a worthy thing to try to figure it out."

  "You know?" Martin smiled, deep in thought. "I think you may be right about that…" He looked at Desmond, really _focused_ on him for the first time, and Desmond realised how sharp Martin had been before age and illness had turned him into a shadow of himself, how strong and intelligent. "Give me a theory, Desmond. Preach to someone else for a change. Tell me why God will make me die when I want so badly to live."

  Desmond moistened his lips and thought deeply.

  "Because things break," he said simply. "Fair enough, people aren't things, but their bodies are. As living creatures go, we live for a long, long time, but eventually, our bodies fall apart around us. They change and warp until we can't use them anymore, and then we die. Things break. It's how the universe works.

  "I'm sure God could have created another sort of universe, one where things _didn't_ break. But the creatures living there wouldn't have been people – they wouldn't have been even remotely like us. And I think their lives would have been less interesting than ours, too. They wouldn't be able to eat, because that means destroying something. Even plants destroy sunlight to live. They couldn't build anything, because to build something you have to destroy the raw materials, turn them into something they're not. They would have dull, uneventful lives where nothing ever changed. I'm not sure whether or not immortality would be worth that price – it might be, or it might not be – but I do know that mortality has its rewards.

  "As for miracles, I know for a fact that they happen. People have recovered from terminal diseases for no apparent reason. I don't know why that happens, or why God decides that they deserve to live longer while others pray in vain for a miracle that never comes and then dies. Maybe there's some reason that a human mind can understand, and in that case I hope I'll find out someday. Or, hell, maybe it's just one big die-roll and there _is_ no reason, understandable or otherwise. But I do know that you can't _expect_ a miracle. That's what the word means; that the world makes an exception, just this once. And while we have to accept the fact that that probably won't happen, I honestly don't believe we can, should, or even are _supposed_ to stop hoping for it to happen. That might just be why miracles happen at all. So we won't stop hoping, no matter what."

  "Breakable things," Martin said sleepily. "With hope."

  "That's us," Desmond said, shrugging. "Near as I can tell."

  "Yeah." Martin closed his eyes. "Yeah, could be…"

  Then he fell asleep.

  He never woke up again.

***

The third night Desmond Flanagan saw the Nephandus, he had been sleeping when she gently shook him awake. He opened his pale-blue eyes and looked up at her, without fear.

  "So," she said. "You won him less than two days."

  "It was what he had left," Desmond said.

  "No miracle happened," the Nephandus said. "He suffered for two more days, and then he died. What was the point of that? How was that better than letting me kill him when I wanted to?"

  "It was better," Desmond just said.

  The Nephandus scowled.

  "Your God killed him, in the end," she said. "Tortured him and then killed him. I would have killed him quick and easy. Why is it _preferable_ to let your God do it?"

  Desmond shrugged.

  "God kills us all, in the end," he said, "and we can't do anything about it. All we can do is try to make sure we get the whole of the time that is allowed to us. And that we let others have the time allowed to them."

  "Even when that time contains nothing but pain?" the Nephandus demanded.

  Desmond smiled.

  "His last day contained a new thought," he said. "I don't call that day wasted, even if there was pain in it. I like to think that Martin would have agreed, though I didn't get the chance to ask him."

  "Martin?" the Nephandus said, perplexed for a moment. Then she understood. "Oh, you mean…"

  Desmond laughed, a harsh, surprised laugh.

  "You didn't even bother to learn his first name, and still you thought you could judge the worth of his last days? You're a fool."

  The Nephandus pressed her lips together.

  "We are enemies now, man who is no longer a priest," she said.

  "I think we were enemies long before we ever met," Desmond said coldly. "Go away."

  She turned around and walked away. He didn't see her for the rest of his stay at the hospital.


	5. Deceit

_DISCLAIMER: _Mage: the Ascension _and the World of Darkness is the property of White Wolf Publishing. All characters in this story are, however, mine._

_I hadn't really intended for these stories to "lead" anywhere, but that last review got me thinking – if they _were_ leading up to something, what would that be? Hence this, which is a point where they start flowing together ever so little. I'll just have to see where this leads, won't I? =]_

Albert was in the kitchen unit, grabbing a snack, when the lights went out. He was left standing there for a few seconds, blinking in the sudden pitch darkness, until the emergency lights went on. A somewhat disconcerting blue glow covered the undecorated metal surfaces of the room, and illuminated Albert's tall, lanky frame.

  He pressed his tongue to the side of a certain tooth, keying his radio implant into action.

  "Agent Tulip calling Agent Hyacinth," he said. "Calling Agent Hyacinth. Reynolds, what's up?"

  No response.

  "Agent Tulip calling, oh, just about anyone who feels like answering," he said. "Hello, hello, am I talking to myself here?"

  _Agent Rose calling Agent Tulip. Albert, quit being an idiot_, a female voice said. It was very disturbing sensation; it was like someone he couldn't see or touch was standing right next to him,  talking into his ear, and only because he had a lot of experience with this did he know that there wasn't. It was like having a ghost in the room. _We have communications protocols for a reason, you know. If you want to know if anyone is responding, you call everyone in turn. You don't just shout 'is anybody out there?'._

  Albert went back to making his peanut butter sandwiches.

  "Yes, ma'am," he said, not sounding too put off by the rebuke. "It's just that power went off here, and now our respected head of Power Station isn't responding."

  _He's not responding because he's out on an assignment,_ the voice in his head answered. _There's a Node that's at risk of falling into Deviant hands. Orders from above is that if we can't keep it, we should at least drain it of as much Primal Energy as we can before withdrawing. That's Reynolds' department, so he's there. So is all available combat personal, for that matter._

  Albert spent a few moments appreciating the irony of the situation. He had spent the last few hours on the Digital Web, assembling information. Because of this, he had remained uninformed of events taking place around his actual, physical body. Technology tended to cause all sorts of wonderful paradoxes.

  "Combat personal?" he said. He finished the last sandwich and placed it on a tray along with a big glass of milk. "Isn't that pretty much everyone but you and me, Louisa?"

  _Your point being?_

Albert grinned.

  "Only that what with the mood lighting and all, that's actually kind of romantic."

  _Don't flatter yourself,_ Louisa said, sounding disgusted.

  "Tell you what – I'll stop flattering myself, if you promise to do it for me," Albert said cheerfully as he headed back to his quarters.

  _Albert, I just lost a six-page report to Farson because my computer shut down. Could you try to be less annoying? I've got all I can take in terms of annoyance right now, thanks._

  Albert's grin disappeared. He had full sympathy for computer shutting down at inconvenient times. In fact, part of his big mission in life was to take care of inconveniently down-shutting computers.

  "Well, that sucks," he said. "If you want, I could try to reconstruct as much of that report as I can once the power comes back." He winced. "Which, I suppose, will be when Reynolds gets finished with whatever's going down at that Node, comes back here and fixes it… because I don't suppose there's any chance that this is something like a blown fuse?"

  _That's possible?_ Louisa said. _Reconstructing a file that hasn't been saved, I mean?_

  "Well, I'm not saying it'd be _easy_," Albert said, somewhat smugly. "But if I couldn't work miracles, I wouldn't be here, would I?"

  _Now you're flattering yourself again, _Louisa said, but she sounded friendlier this time. _But thank you._ _I'll owe you one if… what? No!_

  A piercing scream made Albert flinch, spilling his milk all over the tray. Then there was silence. Nothing – not even static.

  "Agent Tulip to Agent Rose!" he said. "Agent Rose! Louisa! Come in, Agent Rose!"

  No answer. Albert put the tray down on the floor and started running.

  "_Change frequency_ two five six nine zero!" he yelled as he ran. He heard a faint click in his ear as his implant registered the command. "Agent Tulip to Agent Daffodil! Urgent! Urgent! Come in, Agent Daffodil!"

  No one else might be available, but Jake was like him; he had a radio wired straight into his brain. And in a combat situation, he would be listening to this frequency to make sure he didn't miss any orders from superiors.

  _Agent Tulip,_ a dry voice – not Jake's – said in his ear. _This is Agent Cerebral. Change frequency immediately. I repeat, change frequency._

  Albert almost groaned, but of course Cerebral would be able to hear him if he did, and he wouldn't appreciate that kind of disrespect shown to him. Of all the time-consuming things that might happen right now, having to get past Agent Cerebral, also known as Patrick Farson, Supervisor of all Technocratic operations in the Dougal area, was perhaps the worst. This was a guy who had made a _religion _out of not budging…

  "We have a situation in Station 2340," Albert panted as he rounded a corner into yet another deserted, faintly lit corridor. "I think we may be compromised."

  The moment the words left his mouth – and travelled through the hypertech circuits wired into his brain, were encrypted, and started to get broadcasted – he wished he could take them back. _Compromised _was a word that superiors tended to hate, which was why he had used it; it was likely to get a reaction out of Patrick. What he realised, just a moment too late, was that it might not get the _right_ reaction out of Patrick. _Compromised_ meant that delicate data and dangerous technology might fall into hands not fit to handle them – i.e., anyone's hands but the Technocracy's.

  And the most efficient way to prevent that would be to trigger the explosives buried beneath the Station. Albert wasn't supposed to know about them, but come on, information was his _job_.

  Would Patrick consider two operatives acceptable casualties for keeping data and technology out of unfit hands? Albert suspected that the answer to that one was a big 'you bet'. The real question was how highly he valued the Station itself, and all the _extremely_ expensive machines in it.

  Of course, if he had pulled all the fighting personal out, he had probably pulled most of the interesting weaponry out, too…

  _Agent Daffodil to Agent Tulip_, a rough voice rumbled. Jake. _What's your status?_

  Albert opened his mouth to answer, but then one Agent Teal – Albert didn't know the fellow, but then, contact between Stations, even Stations in the same city, was kept _very _limited, just in case – appeared on the line and requested reinforcements to section three, and then Patrick came back and ordered Agent Jasmine – this one he did know, Zara was another member of Amalgam 2340 – to take two Superiors and help Teal out, and then Jasmine came back and reported that she had her hands full here, thank you very much, though she put it somewhat more politely than that…

  … and all in all, by the time Albert was free to answer Jake, he had already reached Louisa's office.

  Normally, it looked a lot like most of the other rooms in the Station; a cubic space with metal sides, the proportions thereof calculated within six decimals to be the smallest ones not to cause a feeling of claustrophobia, furnished with a white plastic desk with a workstation on it, a white plastic chair and little else. Now, however, it looked like a bomb had gone off in here – except that if one had, Albert would have heard it; the Station was big, but not _that_ big. The furniture were half-melted blobs of plastic on the floor, and the workstation was shattered to pieces, scorched bits of chips and wires lying all over the floor.

  "Agent Tulip to Agent Daffodil," he said, breathless with equal parts shock and exertion. "There appears to be a hostile in the Station. It attacked Louisa. I don't know where she is now."

  _Agent Daffodil to…_ Jake began.

  _Agent Cerebral to Agents Tulip and Daffodil!_ Patrick roared. _Daffodil, discontinue this conversation and return to your post! Tulip, remove yourself from this frequency immediately! A team will be sent to relieve you as soon as that is strategically possible._

  "But!" Albert yelped. He was _so_ not capable of dealing with anything that could do this to a room! He was a communication-and information officer, for crying out loud! As for Louisa – if she was even _alive_; nothing in here looked like it was part of a person, not even a scorched part, but that didn't mean anything – her speciality was outside liaison. They needed a Jake, or a Zara, or, heck, even a Reynolds would do – at least he knew how to handle an energy weapon. But if Patrick wouldn't send _anyone_…

  _And if you ever refer, over an open channel, to a Union agent by anything but their designated codename again, _Patrick growled into Albert's unfortunate ear, _I will make personally make sure you do nothing but sort data for the rest of your life, Agent!_

  "That's assuming I _get_ a rest of my life longer than five minutes!" Albert grumbled, but he tongued off his implant before he did so. Thou shalt not screw with thy Supervisor; that wasn't written on any stone tablets – or encoded on any silicone chips, for that matter – but it damn well should be.

  Well, then. No backup, and a pissed-off Deviant in the building. No worries. If he couldn't work miracles, he wouldn't be here, right?

  Right.

  Looking nervously around, Albert set out for Power Station. Maybe whatever had gone wrong there could be fixed. If it could, he would suddenly have access to all sorts of neat little tricks when dealing with this Deviant.

  _Dregvant… _a voice whispered in his ear.

  Albert jumped and spun around, but there was no one there.

  "_Test_," he said, but the tone that should have resounded in his ears to show that his implant was active and functional didn't come. So he hadn't forgotten to turn it off, then. Which meant…

  Hell knew what it meant, to be honest.

  He reached Power Station – a big room, approximately at the centre of the Station, filled with strange machinery – but he saw with a single look that he was too late. The Deviant had been here, too. Reynolds' generators, his Primal Energy solidifiers and his Primal-to-electricity converters, were wrecks of fried circuits and cracked metal.

  Another booming explosion that he hadn't heard.

  Just what the hell was loose in here, anyway? You could probably do this kind of damage with a blaster – a _serious_ blaster, anyway – but much as he would loved to, he couldn't quite convince himself that this was the work of a guy with a blaster. No, more likely than not he had a Reality Deviant on his hands.

  The thought made him very deeply uncomfortable. And why shouldn't it? The very concept of a Deviant was scary, wasn't it? A Deviant was a person who had been Empowered, just as Albert himself – and Louisa, and Jake, and even that miserable bastard Patrick – had been Empowered, but who had, either from the shock of the mental transformation or from the encouragement of other Deviants, had crossed the line between genius and insanity. A Deviant, like a Technocrat, could _understand_ the workings of the world, the intricate interplay of a million different elements, to a degree that no unEmpowered human mind was capable of, and, through that understanding, achieve effects that to the untrained eye would resemble… well, magic.

  It wasn't that Albert had a problem with Deviants, really. The Technocracy as a whole had, certainly, but while Albert did believe in the Technocracy, he had always felt that it wouldn't hurt it to mellow out a bit. A lot of the Deviants he had met were nicer than a lot of the Technocrats he had met – he wasn't going to share _that_ one with Patrick or anyone like him, but it was true. But the concept of a Deviant was still scary, and the concept of a _hostile _Deviant roaming around these corridors…

  … well, the word 'terrifying' came to mind.

  This Deviant had missed something, though. There was a terminal by the wall, and Albert just so happened to know that this one was powered by the same batteries that ran the emergency lights. It was there so the head of Power Station would have a tool for calculations and simulations and whatnot to help him restore power if it was cut. Albert sat down in front of it and went to work.

  Technically speaking, there was no way to direct the electrical currents that ran the emergency lights into any other device. The emergency lights ran on a whole different set of wires than the rest of the building, so that anything that happened to the Station electrical system would not happen to them. But technically speaking, you couldn't bring back data that had been in short-term storage when the power was cut. To the Empowered mind, a whole lot of things that were technically speaking impossible were just interesting challenges.

  Besides, he had spent the last few years being responsible for the computer system controlling the Station, just as Reynolds had been responsible for its physical counterpart. Albert and the Station 2340 computer system _understood_ each other.

  Somewhere in the facility, a security camera came back online and started transmitting the image it was seeing. It was just an empty stretch of corridor, but Albert still punched the air in triumph. Another miracle worked, as per job description.

  He sent the camera back to sleep and activated another, noted that it wasn't showing anything interesting and exchanged it for yet another one. He kept switching, all while the makeshift algorithms he had rigged up to make Station 2340 do what it had never been designed to do kept threatening to run the system outside of perimeters, forcing him to compensate again and again. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.

  _The cleansing fires of Asha will burn you, dregvant…_ said a voice in his ear.

  "Now that's not a very nice thing to say," Albert mumbled and kept working.

  There; one of the cameras activated just as a slim figure walked past it. Louisa was blonde, trim and wearing, as per usual, an impeccable business suit. Right now it was a little less impeccable, though; parts of it were smouldering. She looked shocked, and scared, but composed. There wasn't a whole lot that could make Louisa become less than composed.

  Albert checked the position of the camera, then entered a few more commands into the computer, where after it shut down. He left the levelled Power Central with long steps.

He found Louisa quickly enough, or at least, it didn't take too long for her to jump out from behind a corner and hit him over the head with a flashlight.

  "Aoch," Albert said reproachfully and rubbed his head. Luckily, Louisa wasn't that much of a slugger. It had been a fairly inefficient blow, and besides, it wasn't a very big flashlight. Even so, he was getting a bump out of this one.

  "Sorry," Louisa said. She didn't sound too apologetic, though. It wasn't in her nature. "I thought you were her."

  "The Deviant," Albert said. It wasn't a question.

  "Yeah." Louisa scowled. "One moment I'm sitting at my desk, and the next this girl in an Arabian Nights outfit stroll in and throws fire at me." She put her hands on opposite shoulders, hugging herself. "I was lucky to get out of there alive. If it hadn't taken her so long to get another shot ready…" She growled. "Fucking _lunatic_!"

  Albert didn't object to that description.

  "I've called for backup," he said, "but our fearless leader told me that we'll get it when he's good and ready and no sooner."

  "He would," Louise muttered. "Well, fine, let's get out of here."

  "Uh, I'm not sure we can, actually," Albert said. "Aren't the outer doors supposed to lock themselves automatically when power goes out in here? There's a battery-powered opening mechanism, too, but it has to be accessed from the outside."

  "What?" Louisa said. "What for? That locks the thing that broke the power in, sure, but it locks all operatives in, too!"

  "Well," Albert said, "I think the idea is that either the operatives can deal with the enemies, or the enemies will be blown to pieces when the Supervisor triggers the explosives under the Station – and blowing a an enemy force to pieces that was large enough that a whole Station's worth of operatives couldn't deal with them isn't too bad an outcome, either."

  "_What_ explosives under the Station?" Louisa said, somewhat wild-eyed. "I didn't know there were explosives under the Station!"

  "Never mind," Albert said. "You're pretty good at that super-psychology stuff, aren't you? Here's what we're going to do…"

The Deviant didn't take very long to find them. Albert hadn't really expected her to. That voice whispering in his ear belonged to her, one way or another… and that meant that she had been keeping tabs on him. Seen everything he had done.

  He could only hope that she hadn't understood it all, too.

  The woman was in her early twenties, tall and elegant, with blonde hair that fell in a long braid down from under a turban. She was wearing puffy trousers, an embroidered vest and shoes with curled toes. Albert could see what Louisa had meant. Arabian Nights, indeed.

  She didn't carry any weapons except for a crooked knife at her belt, but she was holding a cupper flask in a way that suggested she took it very seriously. Albert would have laughed, had he not been out in the field often enough to know what Deviants could do with seemingly insane tools. For an Empowered mind, anything could be made reality, from the ordered vision of the Technocracy to the sickest fever dream of the craziest Deviant. You just had to figure out how.

  "Greetings," the Deviant said.

  _Prepare to die, dregvant,_ the voice said in his ear. The Deviant sighed and facepalmed.

  "Okay, George, you can quit it now," she said. "I mean, come on, don't you have _any_ sense of drama? I'm standing right in front of them. That's supposed to be the scary thing here. You whispering in their ears was just something to get them as shook up as possible _before_ getting to this."

  _Sorry_, George the disembodied voice said.

  Louisa slumped her shoulders ever so slightly, and exhaled slowly through her nose.

  "You're that carpet-flying lady who Zara chased through town last week, aren't you?" Albert said.

  "I am indeed," the Deviant said brightly. "So her name's Zara, huh? Can you believe that she was shooting at me when I was right between her and a bunch of innocent bystanders?" She shook her head disapprovingly. "I'd tell you to have a firm word with her the next time you see her, except you'll never see her again. You know, on account of I'm going to kill you and all."

  The corners of Louisa's mouth twitched, as if she was actually finding the stupid joke funny.

  "But we're innocent bystanders too," Albert said earnestly.

  "No, you're not," the Deviant said firmly. "You're dregvanti. You're liars, deceivers, impostors, traitors, tricksters and dishonest good-for-nothings."

  Louisa crossed her arms over her chest and gave the Deviant a stern look.

  "How did you get in here?" Albert said. "Come to think of it, how did you know where to find us in the first place?"

  The Deviant seemed to be having a hard time tearing her eyes away from Louisa, but she turned her head and smiled tightly at Albert.

  "One has ways," she said.

  Louisa shifted her weight, as if she was uncomfortable.

  "You might as well tell us," she said. Her voice was low, calm and void of emotion. It sounded like she was talking to herself. "We're going to die anyway."

  "I… guess so…" the Deviant said hesitantly. Then she shook her head. "No! No, if I do that, your spirits might come back and tell your friends. No, that won't do." She lifted the bottle. "Good-bye, dregvanti."

  Louisa drew herself up with a jerk, like she had almost fallen asleep where she stood.

  "We don't deserve to be killed that way," she said in the same neutral voice. "It's too good for dregvanti. We should be killed by our own dirty machines."

  "… yes…" the Deviant said dimly.

  Louisa's expression turned vague, sleepy.

  "There are explosives under the floor," she said, "waiting to be triggered. If you went away from here and then did it from a distance…"

  "Yes… yes," the Deviant said, nodding quickly. A smile was spreading on her lips, and her eyes were shining. "I'll just…"

  She spoke a long rant in some foreign language, and suddenly faded away like she had never been there. The Technocrats remained silent for a little while, just in case she might come back. Then Albert turned to Louisa.

  "Nice job," he said matter-of-factly.

  Louisa shrugged.

  "It's just body language," she said in her normal voice. "If I synch it perfectly with hers, then she loses the ability to tell where she ends and I begin, so whenever I say something, it's like it's her thinking it. So I did my part. Will your part work?"

  "We'll know in a few minutes," Albert said. "When she's done working whatever hodgepodge she thinks is going to detonate those bombs."

  "What's going to happen then?" Louisa said.

  "Well, if all goes right," Albert said, "the process I started in the computer system is going to give her, or anyone else who tries to meddle with those bombs, one hell of a feedback. It should knock her out for a while."

  "And if all _doesn't_ go right?" Louisa said.

  "Oh, then the bombs go off and we die quickly but painfully," Albert said, deadpan. "But I'm almost sure that won't happen."

  Louisa glared at him, but he just looked back at her peacefully until she gave up.

  "Wait a minute," she said. "What if Farson decides we're a liability and sets off those bombs himself? Won't that hit _him_ with that feedback?"

  Albert shrugged.

  "Well, it's not like the computer knows one person from another."

  "Oh." Slowly, Louisa started to grin. "What a shame _that_ would be…"


	6. I always live

_DISCLAIMER: _Mage: the Ascension _and the World of Darkness is the property of White Wolf Publishing. All characters in this story are, however, mine._

_I was mad yesterday. When I am mad, things like _I always live_ happens. But, admittedly, it's a great deal better than most of my "rant against stupidity" stories tend to be. (shrugs) Hope you like it._

Lenore giggled nervously. She was lying on her knees in front of the small, clear pond in the forest behind Deerheart House, staining her faded blue jeans in the muddy grass.

  "I really don't think it's working," she said. "I just see… You know. Pond stuff."

  Samara crossed her arms over her chest. She was standing behind Lenore, all hard lines and sharp angles to contrast Lenore's soft curves. Even so, there was a likeness to them, a far-off gaze, a dreamlike quality that marked them as different from other people. For all that they were as night and day in many ways, there was no mistaking that they were mother and daughter.

  "Don't think about that it's supposed to be 'working'," she said to Lenore. "Just relax. Let your mind drift."

  Lenore turned her head, stroking sun-blonde hair out of her eyes.

  "I've already tried this," she pointed out. "Years ago. Remember? Sammy took me out here, and spent _days_ trying to make me see something down there. I couldn't."

  "Your cousin Sammy is a clever man, who is very gifted at what he does," Samara said. "But what he does is hedge-magic. He opens himself to the pool, and sometimes it speaks to him. You're Awakened, Lenore. You should be able to _force_ the pool to speak."

  Lenore looked back into the pond, her expression dubious.

  "That doesn't sound very, well, reverent," she said. "Aren't we supposed to show respect for the Old Powers? And isn't the scrying pool one of them?"

  "Yes," Samara said. "And yes."

  Lenore wrinkled her brow.

  "That doesn't make sense."

  "It makes perfect sense," Samara said. "Think about it, and you'll understand. But not right now. Right now, I want you to look into the pool like a good girl."

  Lenore sighed, but looked.

  "I'm really more focused around hearing," she said. "I mean, seriously. How often have you seen me stumble because I wasn't looking at where I was going?"

  Samara gave her daughter's back a sharp look.

  "That doesn't stop you from having prophetic dreams all the time," she said. "You clearly have a talent, and as your mentor, I will teach you how to use it. And as your _mother_, I will ground you for _weeks_ if you don't start applying yourself this very second."

  "Yes, mom," Lenore said humbly.

  They were silent for a while, Lenore gazing down into the pool, Samara keeping a hawk's eye on her. Though she hated to admit it, perhaps she was going at this the wrong way. The scrying pool was the Deerheart family's way of farseeing and fortune-telling. Samara used it for her own craft, as did most members of the extended family. But Lenore, for all her almost unmixed Deerheart blood, wasn't really a normal member of the family. Perhaps Samara ought to bring in some outside talent for Lenore's schooling…

  She became aware that Lenore was humming.

  "Okay, that's it," Samara said. "All I ask of you is…"

  "Hush," Lenore whispered. "You'll wake her again, and I only just got her to sleep."

  Samara hesitated.

  "Who?" she said, lowering her voice somewhat.

  "My daughter," Lenore said.

  Samara's almost permanent scowl broke up somewhat. It wasn't at all impossible that Lenore would have a child at some point. The Deerheart family didn't cater to the 'everyone must breed! Breed, people, breed!' philosophy of most Verbena, working instead on the theory that the most natural way to live your life was to do what you felt was right for you without pressure or expectations, but even so, children frequently appeared. And Lenore had just tapped into some possible future where she had born one.

  Bring in outside talent, pah! The Deerheart way was working just fine! Samara administrated a mental pat on her own back.

  "What year is it, Lenore?" she said, out of curiosity.

  "Year?" Lenore said. "I… I don't… What do you mean?"

  Samara blinked.

  "How old are you?" she said.

  "Counting the winter I was born into," Lenore said immediately, "I have lived through sixteen of them."

  Samara scratched her thick, grey hair. That couldn't be right. Lenore was seventeen years old _now_. Granted, there was such a thing as several possible _pasts_, in addition to several possible futures, but the past didn't usually branch _that_ much in that short a time. People's memories tended to tie it into place… at least somewhat.

  Also, Lenore had been born in May. Samara should know. She had been present for the occasion, after all…

  "My mother died when I was born, you know," Lenore said.

  Okay. That one Samara was _sure_ she would have remembered. She took a step forward. Lenore was looking into the pool, her face sad but calm, her body unmoving.

  "Did she now?" Samara said.

  "They didn't manage to keep her warm," Lenore said. "It was so cold that winter… She died. I lived, though." She sighed. "I always live, and everyone else always dies."

  "Not everyone, I'm sure…?" Samara mumbled.

  Lenore shrugged.

  "Tell me about your daughter," Samara said.

  Lenore smiled faintly.

  "She's seen two winters," she said, "but she was only big enough to walk this second one. She loved it, you know. She likes ice. She likes sliding on it. I have to remember to watch her all the time next winter, or one day she'll walk out on the lake when it's not frozen enough and go through."

  "They're a handful at that age," agreed Samara, who was speaking from a six-child experience. "And, come to think of it, at pretty much every other age, too."

  "I guess so." Lenore grimaced, suddenly worried. "She's scared."

  "Why?"

  "Because she knows they're out there."

  Samara considered that for a moment.

  "They?" she said.

  "The hungry things," Lenore said. "They won't come into the settlement, mostly. They're scared of the fires. And of the metal – but not as much, metal's just something sharp we fight them off with, like claws and teeth. They _understand _claws and teeth. But the fires… the fires frighten them."

  "That's something, then," Samara said.

  "Yeah… only…" Lenore shuddered. "Sometimes they get so hungry that they remember that they're scared. When there's nothing to eat out there, and they can smell us in there, all that meat, it drives them crazy." Though she didn't abandon her kneeling position, she crept together, trying to make herself small. "We're meat," she said. "To them, we're just meat."

  "No doubt," Samara said.

  "And… and sometimes we make a mistake, and we run out of firewood before the night is over," Lenore said. "And besides, we can't always stay inside. The men have to go out, hunt." An expression of pain passed through her face. "It's tricky, you know?" she said, talking just a bit too fast, just a bit too eager to move on. "The fewer men who form a hunting party, the less chance they have of catching something. But the fewer men who stay in the settlement, the more dangerous it is for the women and children who're left behind…"

  "Your lover," Samara said. "The father of your daughter. He's out hunting right now, isn't he?"

  Lenore nodded reluctantly.

  "… yes…" she said in a small voice.

  "When is he coming back?" Samara said.

  "He… He was supposed to have come back before last night." A tear rolled down Lenore's face. "He's dead, isn't he?"

  "It's possible," Samara said.

  "Everyone always dies," Lenore said. "And I always live. Why can't I save them? Why can't I ever save them?"

  "I don't know," Samara said. "Why can't you?"

  "Because… because…" Lenore sobbed. "Because it's so hard to reach them. It's so easy, surviving. When I was giving birth to my daughter, something was going wrong, but I just made myself look like I was supposed to look, inside, and it went fine. But there was this other woman, and something was going wrong for her when _she_ was having a baby, and they wanted me to help her, and I _tried_…"

  "But it's harder to heal someone else than it is to heal yourself," Samara said.

  "I tried to tell her," Lenore almost pleaded. "That she had to make herself look like she was supposed to look, inside. She didn't understand." She closed her eyes. "They both died."

  "It wasn't your fault," Samara said. She didn't say it in any gentle fashion. That wasn't her style. She just said it as a statement of fact. "You're… special, aren't you? Different from the others in your… tribe?"

  "Yes," Lenore said, sounding forlorn.

  "You can do things that they can't."

  "_Yes_…"

  "But you're not all-powerful," Samara said firmly. "And you won't ever be. You can't do everything, protect everyone…"

  "I can't protect _anyone_," Lenore moaned. "Just myself. Everyone else gets sick and dies, but I just make my body right again. When the hungry things come into the settlement, I tell them to stay away from me, and they do, but when I try to tell them to stay away from everyone else, it feels like my head is splitting, it hurts so much. And food, I don't need _food_, but when there's nothing to hunt everyone else just wastes away…"

  "Lenore…" Samara said.

  "No…" Lenore whimpered, hiding her face in her hands.

  "Lenore, I want you to come back now."

  "_No_…"

  "You are Lenore Deerheart. You are my daughter. You are not some proto-Verbena in a Bronze Age tribe. Come back from there."

  "I… I…"

  "_Come _BACK!" Samara thundered, putting all she had of mind control skills into the command. And as if she had been hit by a whip, Lenore gasped, fell to the ground… and stared up at Samara with wide eyes.

  Samara quietly helped her to her feet. Then she put her hand on Lenore's back and gently guided her back towards the house.

  "Was that… real?" Lenore said as they walked.

  "For a given value of 'real'," Samara said with a shrug. "It was a past life, I imagine."

  "Old Powers." Lenore licked her lips. "She… _I _was hurting so badly. People were dying and suffering and fearing, and I couldn't do anything but watch…"

  "Yes, well." Samara smiled wryly. "That was what the world looked like, pre-Technocracy. The Awakened were a great deal better off, because there weren't six billion people walking around thinking that what we do is impossible. The Sleepers, on the other hand, were very much _worse_ off. You might want to think about that, if you ever run into some hot-headed young mage who wants you to help him bring back the good old days. It's a good idea, but only if you don't give a shit about what happens to the Sleepers."

  "I'll say," Lenore mumbled. Then she turned her face towards Samara, confused. "Hey. I thought you hated the Technocracy."

  "I do," Samara said. "Because they're overdoing it – trying to make the world _too_ safe, _too_ comfortable. Oh, and because that involves killing or brainwashing us. Make no mistake, though. When the Ascension War first started, the old Order of Reason were the good guys."

  "Noted," Lenore mumbled, with feeling. "Hey, who were the 'hungry things'? Were they, like, monsters?" Something occurred to her, making her open her eyes wide. "Vampires…"

  "I'm sure they were part of the bunch, yes," Samara said. "But only a small part."

  "What about the rest?"

  Samara started counting off points on her fingers.

  "Well, we have wolves, bears, mountain lions, sabre-toothed tigers, ordinary, garden-variety tigers…"

  "But that's just animals!" Lenore said.

  Samara grinned at her, darkly amused.

  "And do you have any idea," she said, "any idea at all, just how much of an advantage your basic carnivore has over humans, when the humans don't have guns? Hell, don't have _bows_, even? Back then, anyone who wasn't a mage was walking around with a big sign in her forehead that said 'lunch'. And even mages weren't much better off. Not like a wolf can tell the difference between Awake and Asleep, after all."

  "Wow," Lenore said.

  They walked in silence for a while.

  "Do you know the answer now?" Samara said, when they were walking through the back door into Deerheart House. "Why we respect the Old Powers and force them into submission at the same time?"

  "Because… that's the only kind of respect they understand?" Lenore said.

  Samara kissed the top of her daughter's head.

  "We'll make a Deerheart witch out of you yet, Lenore."


End file.
